Dance Artist Incubator — 10 Weeks

Come Make
a Mess.

A durational movement laboratory for artists who are ready to dig. Bad dance is welcome. Rubbish is welcome. Uncertainty is the methodology.

Apply Now Learn More

About

A space to unravel.

RUBBISH is a durational movement laboratory for artists who are ready to dig. Over 10 weeks, participants are given time, space, and structure to move through their own internal residue — healing, unraveling, and exposing what's underneath — through the STATE Method.

That rawness becomes the material. The material becomes work, culminating in a live salon performance.

Two RUBBISH dancers in a timber-framed studio, one gesturing toward the other's chin
"The goal is presence, curiosity, and the willingness to be bad at something in front of other people."

Gatherings serve as dual community spaces: part improvisational research session, part response-based showing. The work is equally invested in moving bodies and in developing the language we use to talk about moving bodies — how we give feedback, how we describe sensation, how we hold one another in creative accountability.

Nothing here is expected to be finished. Refinement is not the goal. It is a space where artists come to make a mess — and find something worth keeping.

Outcomes

What you'll leave with.

1

Community

A deepened connection to artists working in and beyond this creative ecosystem built through shared vulnerability and rigorous creative practice.

2

A Performance

A public-facing showing with professional video and photo documentation of your work and process.

3

Living Work

Projects and collaborations that continue to grow long after the cohort ends. The work doesn't stop at the door — it travels with you into every room you teach, make, and move in next.

4

A Method

Direct experience in the STATE Method and the ability to carry it forward as a personal creative tool and as a framework for body-based healing in the communities you serve.

Weekly Structure

Three hours.
Every week.

Each week is built around three hours of structured creative work — held consistently so the practice can actually accumulate.

Session Time What It Is
Improvisation / STATE Method 1 hour A shared movement session facilitated through the STATE Method — grounding the group in a common embodied vocabulary before diverging into individual work.
Critique 1 hour Structured, rotating feedback on material developed independently that week. The emphasis is on honest, specific, and generous response.
Personal Studio Time 1 hour Independent, asynchronous studio time for personal movement research. Yours to use however the work calls for.

The STATE Method

A new movement language.

Some of the most enduring contributions to contemporary dance have come not from choreographers, but from the development of entirely new movement languages — systems that change how dancers understand, inhabit, and communicate through the body. The STATE Method is that kind of contribution.

The STATE Method is an evidence-informed, body-based system of practitioner training rooted in Breath–Body Integration and Neural Modulation (BBINM). It provides a structured methodology for understanding, assessing, and influencing human physiology and psychology through breath, interoception, movement, and sound.

At its core, the STATE Method trains practitioners to work directly with the autonomic nervous system — supporting improved emotional regulation, cognitive function, and adaptive capacity. Grounded in respiratory science, somatic psychology, trauma-informed care, and contemporary neuroscience.

Breathwork, Movement & Somatic Education

Kinesiology-informed practices that build body awareness, mobility, and resilience through autonomic nervous system regulation.

For dancers: a finer-grained internal map of the body — not just where you are in space, but what your nervous system is doing while you're there.

Sound & Frequency

Application of vibration and resonance to consciously influence and shift nervous system states.

For dancers: learning to use sound not just as music to move to, but as a psychological tool that can open new channels of creative access and tune the audience's experience of your work.

Integration

Combining somatic modalities into a cohesive, living methodology for educational, artistic, and performance environments.

For dancers: a shared language to bring into rehearsal rooms, classrooms, and collaborative spaces — a framework that honors the nervous system behind the movement.

Why It Matters

For working artists.

Professional dancers spend years mastering the external demands of their craft. The STATE Method turns attention inward — not as a retreat from rigor, but as an expansion of it.

Generative Creative Engine

Not just a tool for regulation — a way of making work. It surfaces material that is authentic, specific, and hard to manufacture any other way.

Pre-Performance Activation

Tools to arrive on stage calibrated, not just warmed up. The difference between performing and truly being present.

Creative Access Under Pressure

Breaking through blocks that live in the body and mind — reaching material that intellectual effort alone cannot unlock.

Sustainable Practice

Building resilience that extends careers and prevents burnout — a long-term investment in the artist, not just the current project.

Pedagogical Depth

A transferable framework artists can bring into their own teaching — as useful in the classroom as it is in the studio.

Cohort Fee

What your $475 goes toward.

If you are accepted, there will be a $475 cohort fee.

We believe in making this worth it — creatively, professionally, and personally.

A dancer reclining mid-fall with a second dancer's foot resting at their neck

RUBBISH does not own anything you make here. Everything created over the 10-week process — every idea, every fragment, every piece shown at the final performance — belongs entirely to you. We actively encourage artists to take what they've created and keep building: refine it, collaborate on it, perform it again. The work should outlive RUBBISH.

Participants & Application

10 to 12 artists.
Ready to dig.

A small, intentional cohort. Participants are selected not for polish, but for willingness — to be present, to be uncertain, to make something from the inside out.

01

Video Recorded Improvisation

3 minutes maximum. Show us how you move when no one is watching — or when everyone is.

02

Video Recorded Artist Statement

3 minutes maximum. Tell us who you are, your artistic background, and why you're applying to RUBBISH.

03

Application Fee

There is a $15 application fee.

Submit Application

Timeline

Duration

10 Weeks

Cohort Period

December — March

Culminating Event

Live Public Performance

Cohort Size

10 – 12 Artists

Specific dates will be confirmed once the cohort is assembled.

The mess is
worth making.

Interested? Reach out. Applications are open and the cohort is small — don't sit on it.

Get In Touch